White men (50) hospitalized for alcoholism treatment in Cape Town, South Africa, were interviewed about their drinking history and their parents'' marriage and drinking habits, and were administered the Family Relations Test, the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire and the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire. The significant relationship found between early age at onset of excessive drinking and negative perceptions of parental drinking habits, as well as the consistent and almost significant relationship between early age at onset of excessive drinking and negative perceptions of parents'' marriage, give some support to the hypothesis that alcoholics who began excessive drinking at an early age experienced greater childhood-family pathology than did those who began drinking later. .gamma. Alcoholics began drinking at an earlier age than did .delta. alcoholics.